This is a scale-up financing aimed at turning sustainable materials science into procurement-ready supply, because Seprify is moving from lab-grade novelty to industrial volumes in regulated end-markets.
Swiss biotech startup Seprify has raised EUR 13.4 million (CHF 12.25 million) in a Series A funding round announced March 10, 2026. The investor group includes Inter IKEA Group, Una Terra Early Growth Fund, Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, and Kickfund.
What Seprify sells, and why buyers care
Founded in 2020, Seprify develops cellulose-based materials engineered from plant-derived cellulose to replace synthetic or mineral ingredients across cosmetics, food, coatings, inks, and other applications. The company’s core approach is to engineer microscopic cellulose particles inspired by the Cyphochilus beetle, a biological structure known for strong light-scattering properties.
That biology matters commercially because it enables functional additives such as whitening pigments positioned as alternatives to titanium dioxide (TiO₂). TiO₂ remains widely used, but it sits under intensifying regulatory and customer scrutiny in parts of the value chain, which is pushing brands to qualify replacement options that can perform and clear compliance hurdles.
Seprify markets products including:
- SilvaLuma™ for cosmetics, positioned for performance benefits including SPF enhancement and mattifying in skincare and suncare.
- SilvaAlba™ for food, positioned as a food-grade whitening alternative.
The company says its ingredients are 100% natural, plant-based, and biodegradable, and targets cosmetics, food and beverages, pet food, and coatings.
Strategic lens: the money is for tonnes, not slides
The financing is explicitly tied to manufacturing execution. Seprify said the round will support scaling production to hundreds of tonnes per year and the transition to procurement-ready supply. That is the inflection point investors typically want to see in industrial biotech and specialty ingredients: repeatable production, stable specs, and a supply model that fits how large buyers actually purchase.
Two points stand out in the investor mix:
- Inter IKEA Group brings a strategic lens around materials substitution and industrialisation discipline. Even where a corporate investor is not an immediate customer, its presence signals that Seprify’s technology is being assessed against real-world cost, quality, and scale requirements.
- The rest of the syndicate combines capital with an apparent mandate for sustainability and industrial scale-up, aligning with the company’s near-term need: build capacity, qualify applications, and reduce friction in adoption.
Commercial traction: qualification funnels are building
Seprify reports engagements with more than 100 customer organisations, ranging from evaluations through to early commercial supply, and says it has transitioned to procurement-ready industrial supply.
On go-to-market, the company has partnered with German cosmetics distributor Grolman Group to roll out SilvaLuma across Europe. Distribution partnerships can accelerate adoption in ingredients markets because they embed new materials into existing formulation support, logistics, and regulatory documentation workflows.
What to watch next
Execution risk is now concentrated in three areas:
- Scale-up consistency: moving from pilot to hundreds of tonnes requires tight process control to keep particle performance and batch-to-batch specs stable.
- Cost and performance parity: replacing incumbents like TiO₂ is not just a sustainability story. Buyers will benchmark optical performance, formulation behaviour, and total cost-in-use.
- Regulatory and claims discipline: “natural” and “biodegradable” positioning can help sales, but will be tested by documentation requirements in cosmetics and food supply chains.
Still, the round fits a clear pattern in European sustainability-linked materials: capital is flowing to platforms that can credibly cross the gap from promising chemistry to industrial supply that procurement teams can actually buy.